Just a couple of things to keep in mind recounting the "Top 10 Reasons The Dark Ages Were Not Dark."
I like 9,8 and 3.
#9 because of this quote:
"Ronald Numbers (professor at Cambridge University) has said: ‘Notions such as: “the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science”, “the medieval Christian Church suppressed the growth of the natural sciences”, “the medieval Christians thought that the world was flat”, and “the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages” [are] examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, even though they are not supported by historical research."
#8 because the Carolingians are under appreciated in the grand scheme of European history.
Anyway. During a lecture (one of few interesting lectures. Amazing what passion could inject into what really is a blah, blah, blah session. Listen, copy, write the exam!) my European history professor did a good job of trying to contextualize the discipline. In explaining Christianity's dominance across the entire continent he explained that Europeans didn't view themselves as English, German, Spanish etc but as Christians. "I'm John the Christian" was normal. If you would have said "John from England" it would not have been understood.
Amazing, no?
#3 because it touces on the unintended conequences of nature and man's actions. Notice: Pre-industrialization there was hotter temperatures?
One, is it deals with the earlier part of what is labelled as the 'Dark Ages.'
Second, the conversation thread is interesting.
Third, never heard this joke before:
Why were the early middle ages of history called the dark ages?
Because there were so many knights!
Which inspired me to come up with:
Why the the middle-ages called dark?
No lightbulbs!
What?
Come on!
***
There are parts during the years generally accepted to be "dark" (476AD (Fall of Rome)-1304 (birth of Petrarch), but overall, the M-Ages was a fascinating reforming of Western civilization filled with ideas and concepts that laid the foundation for the modern era.
The Dark Ages were not dark for everybody, only for the plebe, the serfs and the slaves. The light was securely stored in monasteries and in some enlightened Royal Courts. Thus was it preserved from extinction during those tumultuous years and made to reach us in time.
ReplyDeleteIt was also preserved in Arabia prior to the event and misinterpretation of Mohamedanism. Many precious manuscripts, unbeknown to them, were brought back by illiterate crusaders who gave them to their king or bishops thus saving these rays of light from destruction.
Knowledge was power and was jealously kept from the general population for fear of losing that power. Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose very well describes this and the abuses it led to.
And Umberto Eco came as a medievalist first, a scholar of the Middle (or Dark) Ages (he wrote his thesis on Tommaso d’Aquino for example) - so he should know. But whatever we say I agree that there is a lot of ideology in the judgement of historical periods and that many aspects of the Middle Ages are under evaluated. Although I still prefer the Greco-Roman time or European history from the Renaissance onwards, when so-to-say Caucasian people were richer and psychologically freer I believe. While it seems that during the so called Dark Ages the Muslims were more advanced than us in almost everything.
ReplyDeleteIn fact I think they are more nostalgic than us about it.